(first posted 3/26/2013) The Ford Fox and Chrysler K-Car platforms are both well-known for their many variations on the same basic underpinnings. They were stretched, folded and mutilated into an astonishing wide variety of vehicles. But there was a precedent: Ford’s compact-midsize unibodies from 1960-1980. They’re not that often associated as one “platform”, and some might argue against lumping them all together. But their fundamental structural similarities are obvious, and they all have their roots in the 1960 Falcon. It’s long overdue to be given its proper name: the Falcon platform. And if you ever run into a description of any of these dozens of cars (except the 1960 Falcon) that calls any of them “all new”, here’s the rebuttal to that. Remodeling is always cheaper than starting from scratch.

To say that the 1960 Ford Falcon was a seminal car is putting it lightly. There’s no doubt that the Ford body engineers and designers who put their heads together to create the compact VW Beetle-fighter in the late fifties would never have imagined their modest little baby spawning such a huge raft of cars for twenty years on. Numerous Ford passenger cars would be conceived and created using the Falcon’s basic building blocks, in a variety of wheelbases (103″ to 117″), widths (front/rear track from 55/54.5 to 61.5/61), performance (85 to some 500+ hp), and weights (2280 to over 4,000 lbs).

What exactly are the distinguishing characteristics of the Falcon platform? The most fundamental one is its unibody, whose basic characteristics and architecture are readily discerned in all its variations. One of the most instantly-recognizable aspects is the front suspension design, a classic SLA (short-arm long-arm) design but with the coil springs and shock absorbers mounted high on the upper arm.

Here’s another shot of the front end, this one from a 1962 Fairlane. A familiar sight to many, undoubtedly.

Those tall spring/shock towers create a very instantly-recognizable look under the hood of any Falcon platform car, whether its this 1960 Falcon with the little 85 hp 144 CID six,

or 1969 Mustang Boss 429, which made well over 500hp. The high shock towers are always present, as are the bracing from them to the cowl, in order to strengthen the front structure.

Here’s a closer look at the spring-shock towers from the inside. Due to their protrusion into the engine compartment, they became a key factor in what engines would fit, and how tight the fit was when they were shoehorned in.

The Hotchkiss-type rear suspension on all these cars was pretty basic and common for the times: a live rear axle suspended and located by leaf springs.

#1 1960-1965 Falcon 109.5″ wb; 55/54.5 track (inches, F/R)

So let’s follow the long and convoluted evolution of the Falcon platform, chronologically, beginning with its namesake. The 1960 Falcon was a pragmatic design, drawing on existing practice in Europe and the US of modern unibody sedans, compact from an American perspective; not so much so from a European. CC’s in-depth Falcon story is here, but to the extent that it’s relevant for this purpose, it’s apparent that the Falcon was the end result of a long line of small-car designs influenced by the esteemed engineer Earle MacPherson.

MacPherson started with GM, where he designed the still-born Chevrolet Cadet, and then went on to have a long career at Ford. He oversaw the development of Ford’s new cars for the UK, including the Zephyr (CC here), which had the front suspension struts later named after him, as well as many of the hallmarks of modern unibody design. The Zephyr and Zodiac undoubtedly gave Ford the necessary experience to build a sturdy yet light and cheap unibody structure, which was more art than science in the days before computers took over most of the job.

MacPherson went on to be come Chief Engineer for Ford until his retirement in May 1958, by which time the Falcon was already well along in its development. It’s safe to say that to some extent, the Falcon’s roots started at GM with the Cadet, although Ford had its own experimental small car programs. Why the Falcon didn’t use the MacPharson struts is a good question, considering how ubiquitous they later became.

The Falcon’s front suspension design has never been held in high esteem. It will never be praised for any intrinsic superior design and function, unlike the torsion bar suspension used in the Falcon’s competitor, the Valiant, and all of its many offspring. In its basic application, the cars that used it all tended to understeer, excessively so all to often. The steering was generally overgeared and plodding. It was a cheap affair, fitting a cheap car. That it would end up at Monte Carlo, on a Lincoln or on Trans Am racer was undoubtedly beyond its designer’s expectations. Ford certainly did the best it could with the various high-performance versions of the cars that used it, to make them competitive, with the right parts and effort.

#2 1960-1965 Comet 114″ wb; 55″/56″ track

The first evolution of the Falcon platform arrived already in 1960, as the Comet (CC here). Originally planned as a smaller Edsel, the Comet found a home in Mercury dealers, and eventually adopted that brand’s name.

The Comet used a lengthened (114″ wheelbase) version of the Falcon body (109.5″ wb), with new exterior sheet metal. Unibodies are assembled from many stampings, and as such lend themselves quite readily to stretching. A slightly longer piece here, a slightly wider one there…cut and paste. The question always is, just exactly where is the stretch? A good look (and ruler) at these two strongly suggests that it happened at both ends.

But that would have been too complicated for the Comet wagon, so it shared the Falcon’s 109.5″ wb body, with Comet front end sheet metal. Wait a minute…if the Comet sedan had a longer front end, how would the same front end fit on the shorter Falcon front end? Either the wagon had unique fenders, or my measurements of the sedan’s front end (from front of door cut-out to center of front wheel) don’t pan out. Welcome to the game of trying to decipher the many small variations on the Falcon theme.

#3 1962-1964 Fairlane 115.5″ wb; 57″/56″ track

The next stretch came in both directions at once. Ford’s new 1962 Fairlane established the parameters for the mid-sized or intermediate-sized class of American cars (CC here). The wheelbase was now upped to 115.5″, and the body gained a few critical inches in width, thanks to the wider track. The result was supposedly Galaxie-type passenger room in certain key dimensions, but my childhood experiences beg to differ. The key difference in the Fairlane unibody width can be seen its track dimensions: 57″/58″ (F/R), vs. 55″/54.5″ for the Falcon and Comet. The first wide-body Falcon platform-mate; and quite a successful one too, until GM’s new A-Bodies arrived in 1964.

The 1962 Fairlane also hosted the first appearance of Ford’s new compact “Windsor” V8, initially in 221 cubic inch (3.6 L) form. Perhaps the Ford engineers made it so compact so it wouldn’t feel too crowded in between those shock towers. This was just the warm up act of bigger V8s to come.

The Fairlane was designed to accommodate the little Windsor V8 comfortably, which also managed to fit in the narrower Falcon body, thanks to its very narrow width. Although no big blocks were envisioned ever residing there, in 1964, in order to compete against Chrysler’s dominant hemi-powered cars, 100 drag-strip ready Thunderbolts were built , powered by the mighty dual-quad 427 FE engine. Dearborn Steel Tubing did the work of converting two-door Fairlane sedans into a wheelie-pulling beasts with some 600 hp. Modifications were made to accomodate the 427, including special tube headers.

It’s quite possible that some cutting and patching of the spring/shock towers was part of the brief. Traction bars on the rear leafs certainly were, along with a host of other modifications and lightweight body parts.

#4 1962-1963 Mercury Meteor 116.5″ wb; 57″/56″ track

Whereas the Comet and Fairlane were successful, the 1962-1963 Mercury Meteor flamed out. The Meteor had a 116.5″ wheelbase, one inch longer than the Fairlane. Who would have guessed, as they seemed to share the exact same basic body with different exterior details. And I’m not even going to take a stab at which end that one inch was added to. It does make you wonder: why bother? Or it reinforces the apparent ease with which the Falcon platform unibodies were readily “tailored” for so many different (and picky) customers. I assume the Mercury marketing execs insisted on it.

#5 1965-1966 Mustang 108″ wb; 55.5″/56″ track (6 cyl)

Undoubtedly, the greatest triumph of the Falcon platform was the 1965 Mustang (CC here). Original plans for the sporty coupe that revolutionized the market included using the actual Falcon body.

But wisely, that was rejected, and a new body was designed, but very much using as much of the Falcon platform’s parts bin as possible. Essentially, the biggest change involved moving the passenger compartment rearwards, in relation to the axle lines. In the process, wheelbase lost an inch and a half, down to 108″. And rear seat space suffered disproportionately. But it was well worth it; Plymouth took the cheap way out, and kept the basic Valiant body for their sporty Barracuda (CC here), and the sales results were overwhelmingly not in its favor.

But the ’65-’66 Mustang did keep the Falcon’s slim width, in terms of front track and narrowness of its engine bay. In fact, the original Mustang’s proportions were decidedly on the slim side, but that would change soon.

#6 1965 Fairlane 116″ wb; 57″/56″ track

The oddball. Yes, all the stats for the 1965 Fairlane say it has a 116.0″ wheelbase. Yet under its new boxy skin, it was still very much a 1962-1964 Fairlane. Where did the extra half-inch come from? Maybe the rear axle was bolted to the springs a half inch further back?

#7 1966-1970 Falcon 110.9″ wb; 58″/58″ track

In 1966, the first significant changes to the Falcon platform arrived. The trend was for cars getting bigger, wider, heavier and with bigger engines, and the first wave compact era was ending, or so it seemed. Ford reworked the basic Falcon platform in a revised, strengthened and wider generation that would accommodate this trend. The front spring/shock towers were pushed further apart, making room for the larger FE-family V8 engines.

And most significantly, there was now only one basic body to be shared between the Falcon and Fairlane; the only substantial difference being that the Falcon’s body was somewhat shorter, but not narrower; a shorter mid-sized car, in effect. This meant many key body parts could now be shared between the two. With this change, the Falcon seems to have lost its original purpose in life, and sales withered away.

#8 1966-1969 Fairlane, Torino, Comet, Montego 116″ wb; 58″/58″ track

The longer version of the Falcon’s new body was more popular in the intermediate family. The similarities to the ’66 Falcon are least apparent in the hardtop coupe, but the sedans make it quite obvious.

The 116″ wb body was refreshed for 1968-1969, with new exterior sheet metal, but key hard points were retained. They look lower and wider, but the new front end takes credit for that effect. Shown here is a ’69 Montego (CC here).

Why Ford chose to give the wagon and Ranchero versions a 113″ wheelbase is a bit of a mystery. Since the Falcon and the rest all shared the exact same body, except for front end sheet metal, perhaps it was a way to split the difference. We’ll probably never know.

But what is pretty clear is that a longer wheelbase might have made the Ranchero (CC here) look a bit better proportioned, without such a long rear overhang.

#10 1967-1970 Mustang 108″ wb; 58.5″/58.5″ track

The gen2 Mustang was a major beneficiary of the new wide-body Falcon platform. Although it kept its 108″ wheelbase, track was up over three inches. The Mustang looked beefier, and could now accept the FE engine between its pushed-out shock towers. But there was a price to pay for having a 650 lb 390 up front: handling, braking, steering, traction and all-round balance suffered, substantially.

Yes, with the right parts, a 390 Mustang could be made to handle well enough, as the famous Bullitt-mobile proved. But what was it like to drive in normal situations? Those that valued all-round performance and balance stuck to the small block, which could be made to sing readily enough.

It should be pointed out that the minor differences in quoted track width from the Falcon, Fairlane, Mustang and Cougar of this generation almost certainly depended on the wheel rim width and offset. They all had the same basic architecture where it counted.

#11 1967-1970 Mercury Cougar 111″ wb; 58.1″/58.1″ track

The Mustang’s upscale brother had a slightly longer wheelbase. Where was it added; in the front or back? Inquiring minds want to know.

Although the wide-body Falcon platform had taken over after 1966, the Falcon’s deep slump and growing import sales made it expedient to get some new small cars to Ford dealers. The Pinto was still a bit in the offing, but a short term solution was the 1970 Maverick, introduced early in the Spring of 1969 (CC here). It revived the the original Falcon’s narrow platform dimensions, with an even shorter wheelbase. Of course, space utilization suffered as a consequence, as well as rear headroom, but it had that desirable sporty coupe look. Too bad it didn’t drive like a genuine sporty coupe.

Length-wise, these represent the ultimate expression of the Falcon platform. This Torino GT SportsRoof measures 206″; a long way from the humble Falcon’s origins. Although these cars may well look “new” from certain angles, they were still heavily based on their predecessors. A new and slightly wider front end also resulted in an inch longer wheelbase. And the new roofline accentuated the sleek profile.

But a look at the sedan version, like this 1970.5 Falcon (CC here) makes it clear that all those bulging sides and swelling hips were slathered on rather crudely to help disguise the fact that underneath, many of the previous version’s hard point were still intact.

The make-over funds for the ’70 Torino and company was mostly saved for the coupes and sedans, as the wagons were virtually unchanged from 1966, except for the new front end. That resulted in the same one inch incremental increase in wheelbase.

The Ranchero got the same rhinoplasty, and the same corresponding increase in wheelbase.

Once the Pinto came along in 1971, the two-door Maverick’s role was even more ambiguous. What was needed now was a good old fashioned compact, in the vein of the original 1960 Falcon. A stretch to the rear turned it into a reasonably accommodating sedan, if not a exactly brilliant one.

#16 1971-1973 Mustang 109″ wb; 61.5″/61″ track

The 1971 Mustang looks bigger than it is, especially so from today’s vantage point. But at the time, it did rather look like Ford had lost the plot with the original pony car, and sales swooned. It was bigger, gaining an inch in wheelbase, and a whopping three inches in track. This body might well be called the gen3 version of the Falcon platform, with its added track and width, as well as weight.

It’s a pretty polarizing design, rather cartoonish, and as such a predictor of cars today like the current Camaro. The poor misunderstood thing; it was just ahead of its time! But at the time, buyers started looking elsewhere, especially at the beautiful and almost timeless gen2 Camaro. Let’s just say that Pininfarina didn’t exactly go out of his way to praise this generation of Mustang.

But there was plenty of room under the hood, for either the 428 CJ, or the new 429 that replaced it (shown). No problem getting to the plugs of this one; it looks anything but cramped between those still-familiar Falcon platform shock towers.

#17 1971-1973 Mercury Cougar 112.1″ wb; 61.4″/61″ track

If the 1971 Mustang was polarizing, the 1971 Cougar was just a pole. Did anyone ever express admiration for this poor beast? Certainly not this onlooker, who’s being forbearing while I bother to shoot it. “Why?” “For show and tell”. The Cougar’s fat is not just an illusion: it sets the high water mark for weight of the Falcon platform. Nominally listed at 3900 lbs for the convertible (bare and empty), as delivered these would have exceeded the two-ton mark.

The Granada is often assumed to be sitting on the Maverick four-door’s “platform”, since it shares the same 109.9″ wheelbase. But the Maverick had the original narrow-track Falcon body architecture, whereas these cars have the track dimensions of the wider gen2 platform as used by all of the other post 1966 cars, save the final Mustang and Cougar. It was the final mix-and-match opportunity for the Ford engineers to piece together a “new” car for a new era. The Granada and Monarch were Euro-luxo-Broughmo-compacts, or something like that. And they’re way overdue for a full CC here.

If the 1973 Cougar was the heaviest (and most unloved), the 1977-1980 Versailles has to have a few accolades saved for it. It certainly was the most expensive car ever built out of humble Falcon bones: $14,670 in 1980 (north of $40k adjusted). And it was the only one to come with standard rear disc brakes, which makes finding one in the junkyard with its rear axle still attached a very unlikely proposition. But if the gen1 Seville was cynically priced, given its Nova roots, the Versailles trumps it by a healthy margin.

At least the Seville was based on the 1975 Nova, one of the best handling American cars of its era. The Versailles was still wearing the same basic front suspension configuration of the original Falcon, which along with pillow-ride springing made for anything but Mercedes-challenging handling and ride dynamics. A fitting or sad ending to the 1960 Falcon’s roots?

Table of Falcon Platform Variants

Postscript: Our survey of the Falcon platform thus far has only looked at North American variations. In Australia, the Falcon platform found its ultimate development, including this 121″ wheelbase LTD P6.

170 Comments

I think an important precursor to the Falcon’s front suspension design was the original Nash Rambler, which also mounted the coil on the upper control arm. The reasons were probably similar: allowing a softer spring and shifting most of the suspension load to the unibody so the control arms can be lighter, which makes them cheaper and cuts unsprung weight.

I don’t know for sure why Ford didn’t use MacPherson struts for the Falcon. (I know they considered them for the Thunderbird, but didn’t go that way because of the need for commonality with the rest of the Ford line.) My only theory is that in that period, the high-coil SLA might have been cheaper or lighter or the engineers decided the high-mounted coil would provide a better ride, which was a big issue given the Falcon’s very low curb weight.

In theory, of course, SLA/double-wishbone suspensions can benefit ride and handling by controlling camber loss without high spring rates. However, the high-mounted coil had such a low static roll center that it didn’t provide much in the way of roll control without adding a massive anti-roll bar.

One minor clarification: Hotchkiss drive isn’t a type of axle per se, but rather a type of live axle suspension where the leaf springs are responsible for transmitting drive torque to the body. Usually, the springs are solely responsible for axle location, but I think a suspension can have, say, a Panhard rod and still qualify as Hotchkiss drive.

Hotchkiss drive does mean an open driveshaft, but an open driveshaft doesn’t make something Hotchkiss. Some open-driveshaft layouts use trailing arms to transmit torque to the body, usually with additional radius rods, semi-trailing arms, a Panhard rod or Watt’s linkage to locate the axle; those setups are not Hotchkiss drive.

I can only imagine that cost had to have been a factor. When the first GM strut cars came out the replacement costs for the parts alone were on the magnitude of 3-5 times the price of the comparable traditional designs. We were charging something like $7 a shock at the dealer while the bare strut was about $25 and that was in 1980. Putting a strut on a T-Bird might make more sense as they could more easily recoup the cost plus offer it as a premium feature.

I know when the X cars came down GM made a big deal about the technology with the dealer crew even going so far as to having guys go to a special class at the zone office to learn about it rather than the usual books and video material that was usually sent. Because the Omega was a low volume unit for our dealership we would send some of the work to the Buick garage including body work without having to invest in the special equipment early on. Once the A and J bodies came down in 1981 everyone was on board. Kent Moore issues a special FWD booklet for tools for a while until things became more standardized.

Quite a family tree and thats not counting the Aussie Fords still with those shock towers. Apparently according to a local roadtest the ecoboost 4 banger transforms the ill handling base model Falcon due to its lighter weight.

A fabulous guided tour of a platform that I always sort-of knew existed, but for which I could never place the boundary markers. The size of several of these cars has always been deceptive, given their dimensions. The 71-73 Mustang and Cougar always seemed huge, but really were not. Conversely, the 70-71 Torino always seemed to me quite trim, but was actually a fairly large car, giving up only 2 inches of wheelbase to a 1965-68 LTD.

That front suspension was certainly unique. It seems that the long distance between the upper and lower control arms eliminates much of the benefit of a SLA suspension, and adds much of the built-in disadvantages of a MacPherson strut (limited camber range in cornering). I would note that the 61 Thunderbird used a similar suspension., Though I believe that the control arms were closer together, the very tall spring mounted to the top of underhood towers much like these cars did, and also used the diagonal cross-braces.

I will say that Ford designed a nicely stiff body structure in these cars. Although the later models were rather rust-prone, the structure always felt very taut in all of the examples that I drove.

A high control arm doesn’t necessarily mean poor geometry — if you look in the front wheelhouse of a ’90s Honda, for instance, you’ll see that the upper wishbone is surprisingly high, but the geometry works pretty well, probably due to a complicated balancing act between camber gain, effective swing arm length, wheel rate, and roll stiffness. (Of course, unlike a Falcon or a Rambler, Honda didn’t actually carry the spring on the upper arm; on a double-wishbone Civic, for instance, the upper wishbone straddled the spring.)

I think the main thing about the Falcon front suspension in its original form was that it prioritized ride over everything else. Keep in mind that the Falcon was a roughly Camry-sized car that weighed only about 2,400 lb, and Ford wanted it to have a big-car ride. Handling wasn’t a big priority.

Again, the Falcon’s suspension really wasn’t unique; I think it’s important to acknowledge how much it owes to the Rambler, which is something the press generally noted at the time. It was relatively novel mainly because, as with MacPherson struts, the layout only really made sense for unit-bodied cars, which weren’t common at that point.

“I think the main thing about the Falcon front suspension in its original form was that it prioritized ride over everything else.” Quote AUWM
Notice that the Falcon tries to separate the spring mount from the damper mount, which helps with ride comfort and is not so easily done with MacPherson struts.

Looking again at the photo of the Falcon suspension, I think something that makes a big difference is the angle of the upper control arm. On the Falcon, the outer end of the upper arm is considerably lower than the inner pivots; on a double-wishbone Civic, the inner pivots are nearly that high, but the upper wishbone is shaped so that it’s almost parallel with the ground where it meets the spindle. I’d guess that makes a big difference in both roll center and effective swing arm length.

John H

Posted March 27, 2013 at 1:42 AM

Hence the ‘Shelby drop’ modification, lowering the inner pivots by an inch and moving them backwards (to improve caster). The shape of the wishbone doesn’t make any difference, only where each end is located.

Modern “double wishbone” suspension (SLA with a fancier name) all have high-mount top control arms. This includes RWD Lexus, Acura RL/TL/TSX, Honda (Civic until 2000, Accord until 2013) etc.

I’ve also read that Ford went with high-mount coil/shock on Falcon because FWD was considered at one time, and this design gives room for the front half shafts.

One interesting twist is that the successor Fox platform uses a modified MacPherson strut with the spring on the lower control arm instead of around the strut. As far as I know no other automaker has done it that way.

I read that a weakness in MacPhersons is that they transmit a lot of road vibration to the body structure. This may be why Ford modified the strut on the Fox, to keep the load at the chassis level. This may also be why my ’10 CIvic (with front struts just like the original Civic) gets more road noise than my ’88 Accord, which had superior (but more costly) forged-arm double-wishbones.

One thing I noticed about the Fairmont was how easily the suspension topped out (that is, if you “got some air” over a bump, the suspension extended to its stops quickly).

When the Fox-body Fairmont was first introduced, I think Ford said the rationale for moving the spring off the strut was to keep the hood line lower by not feeding the spring load into the upper fender area.

Struts can make NVH more challenging, but not necessarily insurmountably so. Keep in mind that the BMW 7-Series used MacPherson struts through the E38 model.

While it’s not exactly the same thing, you could probably make a comparison to the front suspension of a Porsche 911, which had MacPherson struts, but with torsion bar springs, which were not mounted on the strut.

The Fox “modified MacPherson” design also meant that the lower control arm could be shared with an SLA design. While Ford didn’t do that, kit car maker Factory Five took advantage of this in its Fox Mustang based “Cobra” replica.

Being a retired mechanic for a large retail automotive shop, I’ve changed many a shock on these Falcon platform cars. First take off the brace, then upper shock bolts. Remove the nuts that hold the cap over the upper shock towers that usually had rusted or broken studs. Then, for easier work, remove the front tires, lower the lower control arm on a jack to make the two studed lower shock stud nuts removable. Try not to loose the small rubber bushings and washers while trying to “stab” the shock from the opening in the shock tower to the small holes in the lower control arm. Install the other two small rubber bushings and washers and nut. Probably the most difficult shock installation ever. (Maybe except for the rear shocks on the Ford “panther” platform with air bags!)

I like the original the best. Very nice Monte Carlo rally photo, with the left wheel sticking waaay out there.

One of the nice things about mounting the spring atop the upper control arm was that the top ball joint was loaded in compression. One of my uncles had an AMC Concord which he did not maintain at all. I thought one corner looked a little low, and on investigation the ball joint had disintigrated, and the ball was just flopping around in the hole in the control arm. If he’s been driving a GM car the upright would have detached from the suspension with bad results.

The wheelbase for the 1961-65 Comet sedans/coupes was extended behind the B-pillar. You can see that most clearly with the four-door sedan, which through 1964 used Falcon rear doors. Thus, the Comet and Falcon wagons could share sheetmetal from the A-pillar backwards.

In recent years the meaning of “platform” has been blurred, perhaps partly so automakers can brag about how much platform sharing they have done. I gather that the technology associated with auto design and manufacturing has advanced to the degree that there is greater credence to the notion that you can share a platform even though two cars may, for example, have differing widths.

I’d nevertheless argue that the Fairlane’s platform was similar to that of the 1963-64 senior Rambler’s — it shared components with its compact sister but was distinct in key ways. Adding three or four extra inches to the width required a lot more reworking of the basic body than extending the wheelbase, e.g., redesigning the cowl and windshield. That’s expensive.

By the same token, my guess is that the 1971-74 Mustang is more related to Ford’s new-for-1972 mid-sized platform.

I also wonder whether the Maverick was most closely related to a 1969-70 Mustang. It looks like Ford wacked five inches from the wheelbase in front of the A-pillar and decontented the Mustang as much as they could.

I’d like absolute proof of that regarding the Comet. No doubt the rear was extended, but it looks to me like the front might have been to, by an ich or two. But maybe not.

I can’t see how the 71-73 Mustang is in any way related to Ford’s new ’72 platform, which used a completely separate frame and different front suspension design.

The ’72 mid-sized platform was very similar to the Ford full-sized platform; the frame design is similar, and I believe some suspension components interchange. It was a clean break with the Falcon platform, but not exactly a totally new design either.

Regarding the early Comet, from what I can tell the added length of the wagon comes from a longer snout (note that the hood is more pointed than the Falcon’s). The wheelbase is the same between the Comet and Falcon.

If the 1971 Mustang maintained its unit body then it sure looks like a fairly clean sheet of paper. Quite a bit wider and heavier than the 1970. At the very least it was a modified mid-sized body, although with a completely different (and lower) cowl. One advantage of the new body was apparently that it better fit the big-block engines.

The 1972+ mid-sized Ford may have pulled from the full-sized parts bin but it was a considerably smaller car when it came to interior volume. Indeed, if you pruned back all of the Torino or Montego’s excess sheetmetal you’d likely find little, if any, more room than a Dodge Dart.

I know that about the Comet wagon. My point is, in measuring the distance from the front of the door to the center of the front wheel, on the Comet sedan, that distance appears to be longer than on the Falcon sedan.

Someone with photoshop here should do an overlay of the two to clarify that.

The ’71 Mustang and Cougar most certainly did maintain their unibodies, including the all the distinctive hallmarks of the Falcon architecture. They were widened, as their track measurements attest to. But I strongly suspect that it was mostly just a widened version of the previous Mustang/Cougar inner structure, and maybe beefed up some. The cowl was probably in the same position as the previous Mustang; it just felt so low because the dash lip on those cars was so high.

If ever there was a car that deserves the “deadly Sin” moniker the Lincoln Versailles should have it to the second power. With it’s soft flaccid suspension, carbed 302, carried over Granada cramped interior and high price tag, this car could be anything but a success story. They didn’t even bother to change a good portion of the exterior sheet metal save the grille/nose piece and the silly fake spare tire trunk. About the only thing good about this car was the rear disks and the early examples came with 351 engines.

There is a Versailles for sale about two hours from me in SC – a red one been sitting but has 28K. What is even more interesting is that Ford (well Mercury to be exact) already had the concept going with the Grand Monarch Ghia which, from what I understand, was a popular car with Ford executives at the time. While it did not have the Lincoln-esque grille and trunk treatment, it was every bit as plush. But since Cadillac had the Seville Lincoln had to have their name on something as well. Too bad they should have come out with the revised 79 roofline for 77 before the jokes started but I am not sure how much that would have helped. The Versailles did introduce two now common features base coat clear coat paint and tungsten halogen headlights. The 79-80 ones were not too bad to look at but the biggest stylistic grievance (and could not have been avoided) was the exposed wiper blades.

The Grand Monarch Ghia was not that different from the Monarch Ghia. The Grand Monarch Ghia was the high, high end with very limited color and trim options. My father tried to order one with some changes, but was told that Grands had been subbed out to ASC for final assembly, which was the reason for the limited choices in color/trim. Their limited production is also the reason nobody ever saw them on the street in any real numbers.

The Monarch Ghia was the “regular” top of the line, that could be optioned-up to almost the level of the Grand. My Dad went this route, ordering a Monarch Ghia with leather, power everything, the 351 V8, alloy wheels, and even the trailer-towing package !?!. It was the nicest Monarch I ever saw in person.

I do not remember if his car had the rear discs. I was a teenager and didn’t really care about brakes. I only cared about the accelerator pedal. It worked very, very well on that car. And I had no idea that it was a Falcon under the skin. Ford disguised it very well.

CraigInNC

Posted March 26, 2013 at 11:26 AM

I think only the Versailles got the rear 9″ with discs. It was in response to the Seville, but ironically the Seville came with drums in the rear for 1976. There were a lot of differences between the 76 and 77 Seville more so than in other years and more so than people realize. The 76 used all Nova parts but had 15″ wheels while the 77-79 used different brakes, wheel bolt patterns and various other things. I know this because I had to replace a wheel once on my 76 back in 1998 and had to find one off of a Nova. The 77-79 use the same wheels as the C bodies. I posted a GMG ad in some other thread used a two tone leather seat. It was nice. I think it might have been Iacocca’s bio about Ford execs. I am sure the 351 was nice that was a lot of motor (even in the 70s) for a modest size car.

roger628

Posted March 26, 2013 at 4:19 PM

The Disc Brake w/ Hydroboost package was offered on mid-’75-’77 Granada-Monarch as an option.

An excellent article. Up to your standards and way above mine. Makes me think of the parts these cars have played in my life. Family members have owned mustangs, mavericks, granadas, pintos, and more.

The most frightened I have been in a car is when myself and a sub school classmate took a test ride in a 67(?) thunderbolt. The 427 was a monster. I don’t know what the salesman was thinking of letting two young sailors test drive such a machine.

Thought I would add this for a little light relief from all the conversation about geometry. 63comet. 50+yo woman owns it and is doing the work herself. It has different colors because she is trying to decide what color to make it. It’s the perfect getaway car. You should be able to click it and get a good picture of that indecision.

It almost certainly wasn’t a genuine Thunderbolt. Only 100 were made, for racing only. They couldn’t even be licensed for the street, as far as I know. They were essentially “funny cars”; off-road (race track) use only.

Maybe it just felt like a thunderbolt 🙂

wstarvingteacher

Posted March 26, 2013 at 4:36 PM

Wikipedia says you are correct. It was a Ford Fairlane with a big block. There were chrome 427s stuck on the front fenders and a big Thunderbolt paint on or stick on down each side. It had a four speed and Wiki says only 49 stick thunderbolts were made and they all were accounted for.

I guess I must have ridden in a “tribute/clone/knockoff/fake” but it sure was scary and convinced me I didn’t want one. When I look at the picture I do not think there were air scoops instead of headlights so there you go. Being young means being gullible and I hadn’t thought of it in years.

Carlton Madden

Posted January 31, 2014 at 2:10 PM

Could it have been a 1967 427 R-code equipped Mercury Comet 202 (the very bottom of the trim level.) It would have been one of only 22 built. One is coming up for auction at Mecum.

Excellent, comprehensive article, Paul. I particularly appreciated the details about the Maverick-it looked a lot like the contemporary Mustang, but rode so differently I always knew there had to be more of a difference than just sheet metal.

I would appreciate an explanation of what suspension forces the shock tower braces actually control/mitigate. I note that some of those braces appear welded on, and some bolted. There is so much nonsense written about “strut braces” on other sites (And I can’t find my copy of Herb Adam’s excellent Chassis Engineering book) that this might be a useful discussion. Any suspension experts here?

Primarily an essentially vertical force imposed by the spring/damper, but there is a horizontal component due to the angle involved which is where the normal strut brace comes in to keep the shock towers apart, eg when both wheels are in bump condition. There is also some body twist when wheels have different loading (all 4 wheels) and it helps to brace a large opening in the body shell. The Falcon also sees some longitudinal forces near the base thanks to the upper wishbone mount, so the normal ‘export brace’ adds some triangulation to the structure. Competition versions also had a ‘Monte Carlo’ bar which is similar a normal shock brace but mounted to the inner fender rail near the suspension mount, so it would clear the engine more easily.

During early testing for the original 1978 Holden Commodore, one of the Opel prototypes (the car was based on the Opel Rekord/Senator) suffered what is described as ‘structural failure’ – I’m not sure how dramatic that was. The car was fitted with instrumentation to measure body loadings/stress in critical places, and the Opel engineers did not believe the figures sent back were correct as they were so far beyond what they were used to dealing with.

Holden actually looked at designing a light-duty version of the car for city use and a strengthened version for rural buyers, but ruled it out because of the likelihood that a light-duty car would be bought second-hand by someone in the country and have a problem, which would reflect badly on the reputation of the car. More recently I have come across a report that the Nissan X-Trail CUV has a strengthened body in some markets.

My brother-in-law has gone on some of the outback development/durability testing, there was one incident where a car went airborne at high speed over a crest and landed hard enough to blow both front tires, bend the rims etc. It needed a bit of adjustment/repair to the suspension, I think to the radius rods or front lower control arm mounts (depending which car it was, can’t remember now), but was able to continue on.

L-J

Posted February 12, 2014 at 11:03 PM

The “structural failure” was the development mule broke in half at the B pillar Engineers later said it was because the body structure was not sufficiently rigid enough and the twisting forces inflicted on the body shell during outback testing eventually caused the shell to break.

Many early Falcon broke apart under Australian road conditions they were simply to weak and not designed for rough roads. Tram lines in cities destroyed them without need for outback conditions.
Several new 7 series BMWs were returned to Germany for reevalueation from Australia for the same reasons rattling squeaking bodies designed for 100kms of Belgian pave every 1000kms not a lifetime of such conditions,
Letting a dealership tour group from New Zealand see them prior to shipping may have been a mistake but those same cars came here and sold for 200k plus lack of body integrity and other faults mean they are worthless now but they were very upmarket when new.

L-J

Posted February 12, 2014 at 11:14 PM

Ford Australia eventually cured the problem by fitting the upper ballpoints from the American Fairlane in place of the standard Falcon upper ballpoint What also exacerbated the problem was that some Australian country Ford Dealers would fit an extra leaf to the rear suspension along with bigger sized tyres to increase rear clearance but which in turn put extra stress on the front ball joints leading to premature wear and early failure. By the time Ford Australia came up with the fix, the Falcon’s reputation in Australia was irretrievably damaged with the buying public

The Monte Carlo bar also showed up on the GT-350 Mustang, for the same reason. Of course, the GT-350 also had other modifications, including lower inner pivots for the upper control arms and a very thick front anti-roll bar to address the stock geometry’s massive roll understeer.

The thing I remember most about the front suspension on the Falcon platform cars was the incessant squeaking. Usually that meant the upper control arm bushings were worn or dried out and since there were no grease fittings there from the factory fittings had to be added.

Too many people let that go which made the cars impossible to keep aligned. The upper control arms on the Mustang II could be adjusted (moved and locked down) eliminating the need for shims during the alignment.

If a car was difficult to keep aligned even with low miles I tended to have a negative opinion of the engineering effort that went into it.

Nice history lesson Paul. I’m surprised how much I like the profile shot of that Maverick 4-door. It has the swoopy late 60s, early 70s Detroit look but without the bloat.

Oh Lord, do I remember those squeaks. In my experience, it was even on cars with grease fittings. Grease them every 1K and they would stay quiet, or ignore them long enough and they would get quiet. But even if you greased them every 3K, they would squawk for the last 2k. Grumble. Perhaps my experience was on cars that had not been maintained properly. Still, nothing else ever squawked like these.

Remember in one of the South American countries, the Ford Maverick continued on through 1979 while we already had the newer Fox Platform Ford Fairmont which replaced the Maverick for 1978. In addition, they also offered a Station Wagon version of the Maverick which were never produced in North America as shown on the photo below.

Yup, only about a thousand or so of them made. It is a really high quality job though; it has a real liftgate that opens up almost all the way down to the bumper, which means the gas tank must have been relocated sidesaddle like in a factory wagon.

Although from my observations with rotisserie restorations and such, the 67-70(possibly even 71-73) Mustangs retained basic “narrow” structure of the previous model. The track widths were simply extended via a wider rear axle and relocated control arm mounts, as well as a few other accommodating changes for the Big engines. There are significant diferences in the “wide” structures in shock tower design, bulkhead and floorpan stampings and even frame rails from the narrow structure that aren’t present in 67+ Mustangs. I suspect the Mustang(and Cougar) ended up as kind of a hybrid of the two by 1967 as retooling the whole body structure on the wide 66 Falcon platform wasn’t really in the cards given the unique ponycar proportions.

FWIW, that conflicts with what I seem to remember reading at the time, that the ’67 Mustang shared certain key aspects of its wider body structure with the ’66 Fairlane, and that specifically its spring/shock towers were moved apart so that the FE would have room, in both of those cars.

My understanding is that the FE won’t fit in the 65-66 Mustang, without cutting and such. But much of what I have written here is from deduction, memory and assumptions.

But you may be right; I have made assumptions without having detailed measurements available to me.

I wouldn’t doubt many aspects were carried over, but the basic structure remained the same through 1970 at least. The shock towers were significantly changed in 1967 though. They’re flush with the frame rails…

I put together this compilation of bare restoration pics to show the similarities/differences

Nice. It confirms a couple of things, that the ’67 and ’69 both have spring towers that clearly don’t intrude into the engine bay as much as the ’65. That was the big difference, to allow room for the FE.

You don’t show a ’71; it would be interesting to see a similar shot of that.

I did say the 67 and 69 were essentially the same under the skin. The ’71 is several inches wider, so I assume that would show up in the engine compartment, but I could be wrong.

So it looks like the Mustang’s engine compartment was enlarged twice to accommodate successively bigger engine applications. According to the above reference, there were plans to enlarge the big block to Cadillac -like 500 cu. in. which would have been a sight to see.

The 71s are harder to find restoration pics of (surprise?) but I found some good ones today, and yep still on the narrow 65 floor pan. The shock towers are kinked for the 429s and it looks like several revisions took place up front. Note the solid full width crossmember between the LCA mounts and tension strut mounting. I believe those revisions may be adaptions from the wide platform Torino

I wish Granadas and such were high dollar restoration worthy, I’d love to find some wide underbody and engine compartment shots like this.

XR7Matt: Very convincing. And when you look at a ’71 Mustang/Cougar, one can see all that tumblehome at the bottom of the doors. The extra width is really there, not in the basic body structure. And they just increased track so that the wheels would fill out those deep fender wells. Thanks.

Pedro

Posted April 1, 2014 at 4:44 PM

The basic floorpans of the 1965-71 Mustangs still appeared to be the same except the later 1971-73 had a wider and longer redesigned newly reinforced subframes “engine cradle” ala 1970-81 Chevrolet Camaro and 1975-79 Chevrolet Nova compared to the 1965-70 versions.

XR7Matt

Posted November 16, 2016 at 11:45 AM

Pedro, the picture shows clear as day the frame rails welded to the unibody just as they were in all previous years. The changes are the shock towers the addition of a welded crossmember between the LCA pickups and a new box section for the front strut rod points, and other bits similar to(if not sourced straight from) the Fairlane/Torino “wide” platform. What brought me back to this topic was a very interesting post I stumbled upon on a Mustang site last night while reading up on the cancelled 71 Boss 302 program, the following comes from an engineer named John who was part of the 71 Mustang program.

I was an engineer at Ford and worked on the 1971 Mustang program from the time it was transferred from the Advanced Program Department to our Production Design Department. The design originally included a sub-frame under the front end similar to the Camaro, but the design would have cost considerably more due to the large assembly plant tooling changes required. My chief engineer asked my principal engineer and me to investigate the use of a more carryover front end design to reduce the cost. We were required to make space to accommodate the Boss 429 engine without the kind of modifications necessary in the 1969-70 vehicles. This of course required the structure to be wider and heavier to handle the weight of that engine and the 429CJ/SCJ engines that were also planned. The Boss 302 engine and Boss 351 engines were both in the program. The Boss 302 to allow the car to be raced in the TransAm races and the Boss 351 to provide a more powerful street vehicle to compete with the Camaro, Firebird, Cuda, Challenger, etc. With the decision to pull out of the TransAm racing series as a factory there was no longer a need for the Boss 302 production car.

I drove a 1971 Boss 302 on the Ford Dearborn Proving Ground ride & handling track where we were taking pictures to be used in the Long Lead Press conference in June 1970. That vehicle was an engineering prototype that was built many months and possible a full year before the car in question that was built in August 1970 at Dearborn Assembly Plant. I did have pictures of that car and I will try to find them and if any good I will post a few on this forum.

I had suggested that the Mustang could be smaller and lighter if we limited the engines to the Boss 351 and smaller as insurance rates for large engines were going thru the roof in any case as well. But being a lowly engineer my opinion was not considered â€œworthyâ€ of much consideration by the executives in charge at the time. The car as a result became too large and heavy in my view, and no Boss 429 and not many 429 engine equipped Mustangs were even sold. We ended up using a modified 1970 Torino front structure and dash panel (firewall) on the 1971 which also allowed use of the Torinoâ€™s heater and heater/air conditioning systems. As a result we did reduce the tooling cost for the vehicle by a considerable amount.

At least we were able to get the improved integral power steering system in the vehicle by using the GM Saginaw Steering Divisionâ€™s variable rate unit which was a improvement over the linkage assist system used before. We also proposed using a tunnel-mounted parking brake lever for 1971 and had a 1969 Boss 302 so equipped for evaluation by company management. The system was lighter and less expensive and worked great plus being more sporty as well. The idea was considered too extreme apparently as they would not approve changing to that design.

Iâ€™ve enjoyed reading all the input on this subject. I did see the article in Mustang Monthly and find it interesting that apparently one Boss 302 1971 Mustang did get built at Dearborn Assembly and was sold after being modified. Anything is and was possible in the past. It immediately got my attention as I remembered driving a 1971 Boss 302 many years ago.

Also, the Camaro used the setup you described starting from inception in 1967, not 1970, the Nova followed in 68, rather than 75. The changes that occurred the years you emphasized weren’t in the platform design, but the new generation and the improvements that came with them. The 75 Nova essentially received identical updates that the F body did 5 years earlier, which is why they’re considered such capable handlers.

Guy Ulrich

Posted March 23, 2018 at 9:59 AM

The first printing of the 1971 Ford Car Service Specifications shows data for a HO 302…less compression, slightly milder cam timing and spark advance but essentionally a Boss 302.

The FE won’t fit in a ’65-’66 Mustang without major modification. A 351 Windsor, however will fit, but barely. We had a ’66 coupe with a 351W and a 3 speed manual that was brutal off the line. My dad sold it before I was old enough to drive. I think he sold it because he knew I would have broken my neck in it if I had driven it when I was 14.

Now just imagine what could have been. Only if the Ford Motor Company also added Station Wagon versions for the 1975-80 Ford Granada and Mercury Monarch, this is how they would appear and it would be a worthwhile competitor to the AMC Hornet/Concord/Eagle Wagons and later on the Plymouth Volare’ and Dodge Aspen twins. However FMC decided to follow the Chevy Nova route by not offering Wagon versions for those aforementioned cars. BTW, I have altered and photoshopped the Ford Granada photo.

Falcons seem to be universally unloved, possibly due to its economy car roots and lack of pretense to performance. But my mother’s ’64 Falcon 4 dr sedan had a very tight and quiet body, something that could not be said for my father’s ’63 Bel Air. I still remember it being a pleasant car to drive without power steering or power brakes. The Falcon was simple, but simple done well.

It sure was. They’re well loved some places, mainly the less-flashy and rust-free regions, simply for that simplicity and honesty. It shows through. This beauty plus a couple of well-worn working Falcons live in my immediate neighborhood.

I agree with you, though with two possible exceptions. I spent a lot of time around an early 70 Falcon, a 68 Cougar, and my own 68 Mustang. Each one of them had floppy door hinges that resulted in door rattles. Also, the plastic grommet around the lock rods in the doors had disintegrated, causing incessant rattling of the locking rods in the metal door uppers. Although the cars had really nice tight structures, all of the door rattles gave the impression otherwise, to folks who didn’t really pay attention.
Personally, my favorite is the 63 Futura, either as a hardtop or a convertible.

Unloved? Ask anybody in one of numerous car clubs. Not “Mustang popular” but for a mainstream car they have a strong base.
Basic at times, but even in their simplicity they are attractive. With the Sprints and Squires they are VERY attractive and down right expensive!

I ♥ Falcons. Esp. 1964’s. Despite the fact my El Cheapo ’64 is nearing 54 years old I think it looks as good as ever. Boxy with charm. Keep the Mustangs; I’ll take my Falcon.

I’d take a Falcon-platform oriented 1975 Ford Granada if someone offered me one in decent nick. I recall the ’75 Granada being discussed on here as one of the most ‘performance-challenged’ cars of the 1970s — if not *the* most sluggish.

Great article! I don’t think I knew that the 1962-63 Meteor rode a longer wheelbase than the Fairlane (or if I ever did, I had forgotten). That means that in 1962-63 all three of Mercury’s car lines had different wheelbases from their Ford counterparts.

The Meteor’s slow sales were apparently because customers did not see the Meteor as meaningfully different from/better than the already-established Comet, which was so much larger than the Falcon that it was seen as more-or-less occupying the same size class as the Meteor. That the Comet offered a broader range of body styles may have also been a factor. Comet exclusively had a station wagon in ’62, albeit one using the exact same body as the Falcon (I think the Fairlane and Meteor got a wagon for ’63), and got a hardtop coupe and convertible in ’63 (which I don’t think the Fairlane had until 1965-66, by which time the Meteor was gone).

On the 1971-73 Mustang’s sales swoon: while sales were down from earlier years, sales of ponycars were down across the industry, and the Mustang’s downward sales trend pre-dated 1971 (IIRC, between increased competition in earlier years and a soft ponycar market in later years, Mustang production dropped every year between 1966 and 1973). The Mustang was actually America’s most popular ponycar all three years — outselling the Camaro, which many people today would regard as a vastly superior vehicle — and even managed to reverse its years of sales decline and register a modest increase in 1973. Its relatively poor sales had more to do with a general decline in the market for the type of vehicle that it represented than with the Mustang being seen as a poor example of that type of vehicle. The 1971-73 Mustang was hardly a resounding commercial success, and it obviously did badly enough that Ford decided to go in a different direction for 1974. But I don’t think it sold as awfully as many people imagine (I believe that production was over 100K all three years), especially relative to the competition.

To answer the question posed about the 67 Cougar’s wheelbase — it was added in the back. It gave the Cougar slightly more rear seat room than the Mustang. All the front frame components are the same between the two, and are interchangeable.

Great article! I’ve worked on so many Ford’s from this era to the point that I was always surprised when I opened the hood on a GM product of the time and saw how much space there was between their engines and inner fenders!

Great article Paul. I have owned 4-5 cars from the era you write about. One of my favorites was a 63 Fairlane. Of course, as the teen-aged owner/driver, I never had to ride in the back seat so I don’t share your bad memories. And dang, was it easy to work on for a novice mechanic. We have it so easy today, back then you had to frequently change points, rotors, condensers and spark plugs.

I can add a bit of detail, the XA-XF Falcon sedan (1972-1987 production) kept the same wheelbase as the 66 Falcon, but were widened to 61.1/60.1 track width. I’d say close enough to the same as the 71-73 Mustang, accounting for rim width difference plus a local Borg Warner rear axle on the base versions. The station wagon, ute and panel van as well as the Fairlane sedan rode on a 116.0″ wheelbase.

It seems counter-intuitive that they would make a special shorter wheelbase for the wagons in the US – why???

In terms of the platform life, the rear half of the floorpan underwent major changes in 1982 when the suspension changed to coil springs (not on the wagon, ute or van), then in 1987 the complete front structure forward of the firewall was new to support a new SLALS suspension – short/long arm, long spindle. The upper control arm/wishbone is raised and the top ball joint is actually above the tire The ‘old’ ute and van remained in production until 1994 when it received a front-end transplant onto the old bodyshell – the same inner bed panels and tailgate were used (bar some minor pressing changes) for 28 years.

I’d be willing to believe there may have been a few sections of central floorpan that still looked the same, but that can hardly be grounds for calling it the same platform. Further underbody changes occurred not only with the new 1998 generation car which featured a laminated firewall, but in 2002 when they changed IRS design from one that could bolt in in place of the coil-sprung live axle, with a complete new back half of the floorpan. The 2008 FG model again had a new front structure.

“It seems counter-intuitive that they would make a special shorter wheelbase for the wagons in the US – why???”

I think it was simply because they wanted the Falcon and Fairlane wagons to share the same body, and as Paul suggested in the article, picked a wheelbase length that fell between what each of them normally used. The intermediate wagon body wasn’t substantially changed until the 1972 restyle, so they were stuck with the shorter wheelbase until then, even after the Falcon wagon had been dropped.

At the time the ’66 Falcon was under development, compacts were losing a lot of sales to intermediates and ponycars. Ford may have felt that a Falcon wagon wasn’t financially feasible if it couldn’t share its body with the Fairlane. (GM and Chrysler would both completely drop their compact wagons by the end of the 1967 model year.) The ’66 Falcon actually seemed to mark a complete de-emphasis of the compact market on Ford’s part, which Paul also touched on. The whole model line was kind of an afterthought that was hitched onto the development of the ’66 Fairlane.

While what Ford did here was pretty extreme, it was not an uncommon practice in the U.S. auto industry for the wagon versions of multiple models to be built off of a common body or wheelbase under circumstances where that wasn’t true of those models’ other body styles. This was done to save costs on the exterior and interior components that are unique to wagons. Usually both models were in the same size class, though, and a lower-volume model would typically use the body or wheelbase of a higher-volume model (as opposed to wagons having their own totally unique wheelbase).

–In the ’60s and ’70s Ford and Chrysler typically built all of their full-size wagons across all brands off a common wheelbase even though it was typical in those days for each brand to have its own full-size wheelbase, increasing in length as you went more upmarket. So full-size Mercury wagons might use the shorter Ford wheelbase, and full-size Plymouth and Chrysler wagons might use the Dodge wheelbase (longer than Plymouth’s normal full-size wheelbase, shorter than Chrysler’s).

–For many years up through 1972 Pontiac’s full-size B-body cars were built off of two different wheelbases, but until 1970 a wagon body only existed in the shorter length (wagons badged under long-wheelbase model names actually had the short wheelbase), while from 1971-76 Pontiac shared its full-size wagon platform with Buick and Olds (wagons used a longer wheelbase than any other full-size Pontiac). Going back a bit further, after GM slightly downsized some of its full-size cars in 1961, the 1961-64 Pontiac wagons used the same wheelbase as Chevrolet, 119 inches. All of the short-wheelbase full-size Pontiacs actually used this wheelbase in 1961, but all except the wagons gained an inch the following year. From 1962-64, only the wagons shared a wheelbase with their Chevy counterparts.

–In the article, Paul noted that early ’60s Comet wagons used the Falcon wheelbase rather than the stretched one used by other Comets. A similar situation existed in Chrysler’s A-bodies from 1963-66, where the Dodge Dart normally had a longer wheelbase than the Plymouth Valiant, but the Dart wagon was the same as the Valiant.

Ok, but why if trying to save costs produce another wheelbase variation? Why not just use the Falcon or Fairlane sedan wheelbase? The latter would have helped the huge rear overhang Paul commented on. Note the Aussie version of the Ranchero kept the sedan wheelbase (this would change later) and rear overhang, as did the wagon. Ground clearance was a consideration here, if it was too large there would be issues in off-road situations that cars were still used for back then (not referring to rock crawling etc, just literally off road eg farm use)

And why for that matter is it seemingly standard practice to make wagons off a shorter wheelbase? The length of the overall body is independent of that, I doubt they would want to have less room in a wagon when that is its reason for existing. Also when loading wagon less rear overhang is better from a weight distribution point of view.

I agree with you; if done properly (like Peugeots), the wagons and Ranchero should have had a longer wheelbase than the sedans. Trying to second guess Dearborn is futile.

Lex Luger

Posted May 30, 2018 at 4:11 AM

This also reminds me of the situation at Chrysler in the early ’60s. If my memory is correct (correct me if I am wrong), the ’61 Plymouth, ’62 Dodge 880 and ’62 Chrysler wagons all used the same basic body shell, namely the rear fenders. They were all pillared and came on a 122″ wheelbase except for the pillarless ’62 Chrysler New Yorker wagon, which was a 4 door hardtop wagon on a 126″ wheelbase. The ’61 Plymouth sedan came on a 118″ wheelbase, the ’62 Dodge 880 sedan came on a 122″ wheelbase, and the ’62 Chrysler Newport sedan also came on a 122″ wheelbase. The larger ’62 Chrysler New Yorker sedan came on a 126″ wheelbase. Chrysler didn’t sell a lot of wagons back in those days so Plymouth, Dodge and Chrysler shared the same body shells. If you look at the ’61 Plymouth wagon, the ’62 Dodge 880 wagon and the ’62 Chrysler wagons from behind they look to be very similar other than minor trim, details and taillights.

That is similar to the situation with the early ’70s Chrysler A body compacts. The Plymouth Valiant sedan had a 108″ wheelbase while the Dodge Dart sedan and Dart Swinger hardtop had a 111″ wheelbase. Plymouth came out with the 1970 Duster on the 108″ wheelbase and it was a roaring success. Dodge decided it wanted its own Duster and of course, Dodge always got what it wanted back in those days, so in 1971 the Dodge Demon was introduced on the 108″ wheelbase. Plymouth said if they were going to allow Dodge to produce a version of the Duster then they should be able to produce a version of the Dodge Dart Swinger and the Plymouth Scamp was born the same year as the Demon, on the 111″ wheelbase. So the situation in 1971 was that the Valiant sedan, Duster coupe and Demon coupe were built on the 108″ wheelbase while the Dart sedan, Dart Swinger hardtop and the Scamp hardtop were all built on the longer 111″ wheelbase. In 1974 the Valiant sedan moved up to the Dart’s 111″ wheelbase, but the Duster and the Dodge Dart Sport (formerly the Demon, you can think the batshit fundie nutjobs for the name change) still came on the 108″ wheelbase.

I forgot to mention the 1973-78 P5 and P6 model LTD’s, which sat on a 121″ wheelbase. They weighed 3950-4039lb complete with standard 4bbl 351C, FMX trans, 9″, 4 wheel disc brakes and a lot of features inside.

The 1979 Australian XD Falcon and the 1979 European Granada did look very similar. I have a fascinating Ford Australia book of prototype photos from the 50s to the late 80s, and the first XD Falcon prototypes were very similar to the XC Falcon, and actually looked like the American Granada. Then Ford decided that they needed had a modern look, and experimented with the designs that matched the Euro Granada. But they then decided they wanted a lower waistline (remember them!) than the Euro Granada allowed (it used new outer skins on the 1970s Euro Granada inner structure). So ultimately the XD Falcon ended up being effectively an Australianised version of the Euro Granada styling, wrapped over the XC Falcon platform. Although the Falcon shared much of the detail design with the Euro Granada (the shape of the rear guard/bootlid/rear panel junction is almost identical for example), the only part actually shared between the two is the front indicators (the triangular ones beside the headlights). Both designs aged well though – and the XD-XF Falcon must surely have one of the lowest waistlines ever, visibility was superb!

Thanks for the detail. I remember being totally blown away when I visited Europe as a student in ’77 & saw the Euro Granada, Taunus, & Escort, & took the trouble to photograph several examples outside a hotel in Yugoslavia. I wondered why is it we live in Ford’s homeland, but we got the chump cars.

There was quite a battle over the waistline of the XD Falcon, Dearborn wanted a continuous line from the top of the front fender to the trunk, as tradition dictated. It’s hard to imagine what that would have been like, and nice to have an alternative to both the 1970s cocoons and modern bunkers.

Could the use of SLAs front suspensions instead of struts been because of durability issues? The first Falcons in Australia were notorious for collapsing the suspension towers on our harsh roads, it almost put Ford Australia out of business. Ford ended up beefing up the body structure dramatically in later models. Struts could have put even more pressure on the front end structure.

Early Falcons are an absolute rarity here durable they were not and really sales only took off in NZ when the MK4 Zephyr turned out to be a lemon and Ford OZ had finally made a car that didnt fall apart or rust if it got wet and they remained popular untill recently when suddenly there are no customers and even the main dealership isnt interested in them here. Doesnt bode well for Ford Australia.

All our Zephyrs were V6 but the 2.5 was rapidly replaced by the 3L it was more durable and reliable but the die was cast and MK4s became the first heavily discounted car that I remember, and Falcon sales took off

The discussion about what constitutes a platform strikes me as too focused on suspension bits. You can carry over quite a few parts onto an otherwise brand-new platform. By the same token, two very different corporate platforms can share many major suspension and driveline components.

My understanding is that the most expensive aspects of a redesign typically involve the basic architecture of a body — not the suspension. To illustrate, here are four levels of change.

Stretch: This is the least costly because it is much easier to add length to a platform than width. A classic example is the 1967 Dodge Dart, which shared door sheetmetal with the Plymouth Valiant but had a longer wheelbase behind the B-pillar, and distinct front and rear treatments.

Reskin: Here is where the basic body is carried over but the sheetmetal is changed. An example of that is the 1965 senior Rambler, which used the same windshield, door frames and whatnot as the 1963-64 but looked fairly different.

Restyling: This is when the redesign also includes some structural changes, such as a new windshield. The 1967 AMC Rebel/Ambassador would be in this category; so would the 1974 Matador coupe, which despite its dramatically different look still carried over the basic platform introduced in 1963. How can you tell? In this case, one indicator is that the “tuck under” was much less than, say, the AMC Hornet.

New platform: The AMC Hornet could be a useful example. The body was completely new. It was an expensive undertaking partly because a much more extreme tuck under apparently required changes to the manufacturing process. However, you could nevertheless point to lots of carrying over of components such as suspension bits.

This is why I think the Fairlane is arguably on a separate — if related — platform from the Falcon. By the same token, I don’t see how the 1971 Mustang could still be considered to use the original’s platform. Too much was changed. Based on the above discussion, I suspect that its greater width and weight reflected a switch to a shortened 1970-71 Fairlane platform.

The flip side to that: As Paul mentioned, the Granada was clearly a descendant of the original Falcon/Mustang platform even though it looked substantially different.

There’s no question that the word “platform” has come to be defined in more plastic terms, and that I’m stretching it in this application.

Sometimes, “platform” is used more literally, as in actually sharing major underbody components, like the floor pan, cowl, etc. The question is really where exactly that ends. The Chrysler mini-vans certainly didn’t share actual body components of the original K-car.

My point is that at no point in the development of all these cars was the process begun with a clean sheet of paper. All of them involved starting with components and certain architectural aspects of its predecessor.

It’s much easier to reuse aspects than design from scratch. And there’s no doubt that’s what happened with all these cars. And a careful look at their undersides and insides makes that pretty clear.

Like so many things, there is a semantic aspect to this whole issue. I chose to interpret the word “platform” in a more liberal way. And in modern auto construction, that’s certainly increasingly the case.

With modern CAD/CAM, it’s not that hard to change the basic underbody body components, but even then, there’s a “platform” similarity in certain key aspects. Maybe the word “platform” isn’t the best one any more. VW has gone to calling it “modular”. That might be more accurate, in some regards.

My overarching point in this piece was to tie the history and technology of all these cars together, as members of the “Falcon family”, if you prefer.

I tend to define the platform by the literal as Paul describes. I don’t really count the body structure as being a defining part of the platform. There’s some significant differences within Fox Platform by model/year as well as the Panthers really. Wheelbase changes tend to necessitate new floorpan stampings, suspension components, ect. and in the end you have to really look at the basic layout to judge.

The Falcon platform is unique as it was an early unibody design for Ford and wasn’t at all designed for the applications it later served. Many changes made on it were to make it more rigid(torque boxes, bracing), fit engines(narrowed shock towers), and of course extend/shorten wheelbases(floor pans, cowl stampings, rocker panels ect.). I am on a similar page with the 66 “wide platform” as even the front frame rails were new stampings but it’s just so fundamentally rooted in the original 1960 design I can’t dilute myself into saying it’s truly new. Maybe call it the SN66 hehe

It would probably be a fair thing then to say the 66 Falcon (& Fairlane, and 67 Mustang) were really “all new” even if they were an evolution from the original – all new sheet metal? The 2008 FG Falcon has been wrongly called a restyle (to use Dr Lemming’s terminology) of the previous BF Falcon, however the complete unibody was new with the exception of one or two small pressings (I don’t know exactly what was carried over), so I imagine it may have been the same for the 66.

And is this such a bad thing? Why would you want to throw everything away and start from scratch, as if nothing had gone before. Sure everything will be tweaked to some extent and a few major changes incorporated – but would any new generation car be different?

I would note that even if a change requires new stampings, those stampings don’t necessarily require new tooling, which can end up being a crucial point. If you can change something by modifying the existing tooling rather than having to retool, it can save you a LOT of money, even on comparatively small pieces.

I think there are a lot of misconceptions about platform sharing, which can take many different forms. Sharing platforms doesn’t necessarily mean shared components — it can mean different parts created with some or all of the same tooling and/or using some of the same transfer equipment. Occasionally it can mean sharing engineering designs and development without actually sharing tools or parts: a common set of blueprints, if you will.

CAD/CAM has expanded the practical possibilities, but the ambiguity isn’t really new. Consider the 1966-1970 GM E-bodies: All shared inner body stampings and at least some glass, but not only were the Eldorado and Toronado FWD while the Riviera was RWD, the Buick has a separate self-supporting frame while the Cadillac and Olds were unitized with a subframe.

I would support Paul’s description of the Falcon/Fairlane/et al as extensions of a common platform. Obviously, we’d have to go digging through Ford’s industrial archives and talk to former manufacturing people to get a definitive picture of the tooling development and how many pieces are actually shared, but at the very least, there was a lot of “grandfather’s ax” development involved.

Well, let’s keep in mind that low sales are a relative thing. Ford sold nearly half a million 1969-1970 Mustangs and about 410,000 of the 1971-1973 models, which was a far cry from 1965, but still far from awful in an absolute sense. It was not nearly as bad as the E-body Barracuda, certainly.

Dr Lemming

Posted March 30, 2013 at 12:24 PM

Sure. And one also needs to add the economies of scale that came from basing the Cougar off the same platform. The flip side is that Ford’s cost structure was likely much higher than Chrysler’s, e.g., greater sales expectations translated into higher marketing costs and production capacity commitments.

All that said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the 1971 redesign brought the lowest ROI in Mustang history, both due to lower annual sales and the relatively short period of time that generation was in production.

When Ford was deciding whether to introduce the original Mustang, corporate bean counters undoubtedly debated whether the added level of product differentiation would pay back better than, say, adding a Barracuda-style fastback to the Falcon body.

Remember that the Mustang wasn’t just a reskinning, e.g., it had structural changes that made it a fairly expensive risk.

I’d imagine that the basic body used by the 1965-70 Mustang/Cougar paid off handsomely for Ford. And that’s not even including further use of the platform with the Maverick and Granada.

The 1971 Mustang, in contrast, was a dog — despite a much more substantial redesign than in either 1967 or 1969. Unlike the Camaro body introduced in 1970 1/2, the Mustang simply didn’t have staying power.

Speaking about the GM E bodies. While the ’66 Toronado and ’67 Eldorado were FWD they used a perimeter frame with a leaf spring suspended rear ends. This was similar to the big Cadillac perimeter frame though those used coil springs at the rear end. This was supposed to be useful in minimizing “noise, vibration, and harshness”, Contrast this to the 66 Riviera’s X shaped frame with RWD and coil springs at all corners. This was supposed to provide a stronger frame for better handling and the body mounts were tuned to provide the smooth ride. These 60s model Rivieras had their best sales in 1969 when they sold around 50,000 units. Sales declined into the mid 30,00s into the boatail years. Toronado and Eldorado sales were never that high. After the ’79 redesign the Eldo became the volume seller. Even though these were high dollar cars with a healthy profit margin, it’s hard to imagine that they could have been huge money makers for GM. How could GM afford to build so many low volume variations and still make a buck? Or were these all relative loss leaders built to maintain their corporate prestige?

My favorite example of this kind of re-use, if the story I heard was correct, would have to be the Fierro. The front being the front end of a Chevette (minus the engine) and the back being the front end of a Citation. People called it the Fiasco, but once they got a V6 into it, it was alleged to be a decent cut-rate mid-engine sports car. Of course, as was usual for GM, the early versions tainted its image.

Paul, you’ve outdone yourself! This (and all the erudite comments) has been a great read. Although I can’t believe that someone of my generation has not at least ridden in a Falcon, I honestly can’t remember if I have. Of course, I have ridden in Mavericks, Fairlanes, Comets and even driven some of them. Anyway, two Falcon-related notes:
1 – you didn’t mention the 1st gen Econoline van, which was badged as a Falcon in some configs. I was reminded of this when I saw one last night, in true “CC Effect” fashion. Wikipedia says it was “based on the compact Ford Falcon” …. was it really a unibody or body-on-frame, only sharing the name and some mechanical components, like the six.
2- In early 1964, we moved to England for 6 months. Although I was just 7 years old, I have many memories, and one was all the press the Monte Carlo Falcons were getting. Though it was the second year for the Falcons in the event, it probably didn’t get much visibility here in the States. But it was big news there, in the regular newspapers and not just automotive press: Big Yank vs Mini and Saab. So those Falcon Sprints have always been in my memories.

Back in my wayward youth I put a ’65 Mustang back together, so I became quite familiar with this platform. I always admired it for its simplicity (I still do). From working in my father’s body shop, scouring junkyards for my Mustang project, and working the parts counter at the local NAPA store, I knew about the strong family connection from the ’60 Falcon to the ’80 Granada. I always thought of the whole lineage as the Falcon platform. The original 6-cylinder was known as the Falcon Six, I believe, just as the smallblock V8 was known as the Fairlane V8 (these names faded away as the original cars did likewise). The distinctive front suspension was sometimes referred to as the “tower” suspension, due to its height.

I have no doubt that Ford examined the Rambler for ideas when conceiving the Falcon concept. The similarities that I found studying old repair manuals definitely point that way. Also, my Mustang had a 3-speed manual with only 2nd and 3rd sychronized; 1st and reverse you picked your moment and jabbed it in there. According to the 1964 Motor Manual, this tranny was shared between the Falcon and Rambler.

Ford certainly got a lot of mileage out of this platform. The question is whether they SHOULD have gotten so much. Certainly the Granada/Monarch was considerably past its sell-by date. On the other hand, these sold like hotcakes, made a lot of easy money for Ford, and after they died, provided a ready source of suspension updates for older Mustangs–perhaps their most valuable contribution 🙂

I built a 1962 Falcon back in 1970 and was going to build it for drag racing and ended putting it on the street. It has been sitting in the garage for forty years and I’m thinking about resurrecting it. Back when I built it, I saw a ’60 – ’62 Falcon in a magazine that was drag raced and it had ” Flash Falcon ” wrote on the side of the car. I am wondering if anyone out there has ever heard of, saw or has pictures of this car ? ( Preferably Pictures ) Please write me at: jobenrader@gmail.com or call 814-354-2623. Please put ” Flash Falcon ” in the subject line so I know to open it.

AS an aussie I have to claim the longest wheelbase Falcon platform vehicle. The 73 to 79 Australian Ford LTD @ 121″. It not only used the local Fairlanes’ 5″ stretch behind the rear door but also 5″ longer rear doors.

This is my first visit to this site, so I apologize if this subject has been previously discussed.
Three years ago, I rebuilt the front suspension in my 1964 Ford Falcon Futura using the disc brake spindles from a 1976 Granada (a common transplant). The only Granada parts required to make the fit perfect were the outer tie rod ends (much cheaper than the aftermarket ‘rare’ parts). The ball joints and inners were stock V-8 Falcon components.

What about the Australian Ford Falcons. They used the first generation US Falcon platform up to 1967 in four distinct model series [XK XL XM XP] then the second generation US Falcon platform from 1967 to 1971 in four distinct series XR XY XT XW] after which the Australian Falcon platform was designed entirely in Australia, yet I see absolutely no reference to the 1960 -71 cars anywhere in your article.

The article was about the direct American lineage. Sort of like a father-son-grandson thing, whereas the Aussie Falc is the son who moved downunder and changed parts of his accent to fit in. The Aussie Falcs are mentioned in many of the comments above – John H describes the evolution of the Australian Falcon version of the platform very well.

The title of this particular article DOE NOT SAY it is only about the American Falcon platform. It in fact infers it is talking about ALL Falcon platforms which would imply that the Australian Falcon platform would also be included.

And your assertion that the Australian Falcon platform is a cousin to the American “parent” is erroneous as well. With the exception of being right hand drive and in the case of the wagon having a shorter rear overhang, the Australian chassis especially the XL to XP series was identical to the American chassis. In fact a Sydney Ford dealer in the early sixties used to import Ford V8s from America and fit them to the locally produced Falcon. The engines were a straight bolt in operation with absolutely no modification of any sort required and the conversions were even Ford approved. Indeed the Australian and American platforms were so identical that early Australian Falcons suffered regular front end collapses because the American components couldn’t cope with Australia’s rural roads

L-J, This is a pretty comprehensive look at the US name and platform. Paul recently covered the mesmerising Argentinian Falcon so find that too, its an eye-opener. John H wrote a good overview above of the Aussie versions; please feel free to expand upon that and write a story.

I would suggest, however, that you re-examine some of your claims before submitting.

I am more than happy to be corrected if I wrong. However, I refuse to have ridicule heaped on myself by ignorant abusive individuals who think they’re making some sort of amusing comment when in fact their intention from the word go was simply to ridicule another poster.

Having said that, I too find the Argentinian Falcon story quite mesmerizing as well. When I first encountered a magazine article about the Argentine Falcons about 10 years ago, I was instantly hooked It’s a bit like the situation that existed in India until recently with obsolete models of British and Italian cars from the 1950s and 1970s that continued to be made in India long after the same car had stopped being sold on its original home market

The South American car scene is truly fascinating being populated by variations of British, European and American cars long gone from their home market, not to mention the many unique to a particular South American country car design which most of us in the Western World have never heard of, let alone are ever likely to set eyes on.

And then of coarse there’s the equally fascinating stories of the unique cars that were produced in Egypt, Iran Taiwan and China

I think some of the comments may have been misconstrued or poorly worded. No insults were intended. But I’ve removed those comments that seem to have gotten this thread off track. My apologies to anyone who was offended. But let’s just leave it at that.

Scott McPherson (aka NZ Skyliner)

Posted February 12, 2014 at 11:52 PM

Well said Paul, and I too apologise. We’re a passionate bunch downunder!, especially when it comes to Ford and Holden! Toyota has just announced it’s ending car production in Australia too; it’s a sad day for all.

L-J

Posted February 13, 2014 at 2:33 AM

Ditto

I think a lot of us Aussies are now ruing the day we changed government
Toyota is in the area where I live and the other companies in the area that supply automotive parts to it [Nippon Denso, NatRad, the plastic producing companies etc] are all going to be decimated. In three years time the area will be a ghost town. And lets not forget that although the pull out date is 2017, Ford Holden and Toyota may go earlier because who in their right mind is going to buy any of those brand of car in the 3 years left if in 2017 it’s going to be an orphan Ford Holden and Toyota are going to struggle to sell cars during that time. Indeed, we’re already starting to see that happening with Ford and Holden now.

Don Andreina

Posted February 13, 2014 at 2:59 AM

L-J. One thing we all understand here is Paul’s rules on discussing politics. Closure of the industry here is not a partisan issue, its a complex web of failure to develop in line with changing expectations and the desperate need to align ourselves with other developed economies who still make cars. You sound as if you are seasoned on vehicles, may I suggest David Halberstam’s ‘The Reckoning’. It’s chunky and concerns itself with Nissan and Ford US but puts this all in perspective.

L-J

Posted February 13, 2014 at 3:35 AM

I was not making a partisan political statement, merely reflecting what a lot of Aussies are likely to feel in the days to come. I don’t as a rule engage in political debate and certainly don’t intend to do so now Whatever the reasons for the demise of car manufacturing in Australia, none the less it must be acknowledged that most certainly a persons political persuasions will inevitably colour how they view such events From my own perspective the selling of cars in Australia has come full circle historically.. Prior to the 1940s cars sold in Australia were almost all produced overseas with assembly of such being done in Australia, oftenwith localy designed and produced bodies. It appears we will be returning to something akin to those times

dingleydave

Posted February 13, 2014 at 3:39 AM

I think a lot of it is cost. Who can afford a new car? Most families need 2 cars so if, big if, one of these is new it will most likely be a small car. We all know who wears the trousers these days. Also, once the free trade deals were signed and the tariffs were lowered the writing was on the wall.

dingleydave

Posted February 13, 2014 at 3:44 AM

edit: or an SUV to barge people out of the way on the school run.

L-J

Posted February 13, 2014 at 4:12 AM

That appears to be the perception concerning the price of new cars in Australia, however were the price of a new car today in terms of percentage of an average person’s annual income be compared to the percentage of an average persons income in 1948 the year the first Holden was released, you’d find that cars are in fact cheaper to buy today than then Roughly speaking it cost the equivalent of two years wages to buy a new Holden back then compared to today where the figure I last saw said it now roughly costs a years income to buy a new car .

Don Andreina

Posted February 13, 2014 at 2:29 AM

I too apologise. There is a fuller story to be told on the Australian Falcon variants as Paul’s recent post on the HQ has demonstrated. CC is a special place populated by those with passion. Welcome.

You rather answered your own question. Since the 1960 – 1971 Australian Falcons were the same, or slightly modified versions of the NA Falcons, I saw no need to make specific mention of them. It was beyond the scope of this particular article to get into additional local variations. That’s been covered elsewhere.

But yes, ideally mention of the Australian and Argentinian and any other overseas use of the Falcon platform would have been included. How about if I just say I ran out of time and energy 🙂 Is that good enough?

Keeping it in the Family at least in the Falcon and later its Fox Chassis Fairmont on the Ford Motor Company which succeeded its Falcon derived Compact/Intermediate which are now considered Full Size Cars today. I have created a Falcon and its successor Fox Platform Family Tree which also included the revised Ford MN12 Platform for the 1989-97 Ford Thunderbird as well This only applies to the models as small as the Falcon based 1964 Ford Mustang at 181.0″ through the largest as the Fairmont based1988 Ford Thunderbird at 202.1″. I have not included the Fox Platform based 1979 Ford Mustang nor the larger Falcon based Fairlane/Fairlane Torino because the former is one size category smaller (only slightly longer than the Pinto based Mustang II) and the latter one size category longer or at least half a foot longer than the Granada on the average. These are Two Door Coupes only and I have added the Jaguar based 2000 Ford Thunderbird just for the sake of comparison with those cars. I will also post the Mercury version of this photo montage compilation as well right immediately right after this one.

My middle brother drove a red ’66 two door Falcon just like #7 above. He took great pleasure in scarring the shit out of his younger bother (me!!) with his piss poor driving skills (corning on two wheels, sliding around curves, ignoring stop signs, etc). Remember, this was the late ’60s and all forms of authority were to be challenged!!

I saw one of these Falcons at a car show several years back and my heart skipped a beat!! To this day, I have a slightly distorted view of these cars!

I owned and drove the ’62 Ford Fairlane SW and ’63 Rambler Classic back in the day. I still wish that I had both cars today. I had them both set up to handle having heavier springs and air shocks on the cars. People think air shocks as just to raise the rear of a car but when used in moderation actually helps handling. Also had my ’69 Valiant 2dr sedan equipped with air shocks in 1985 which made for a good handling car.

Competition breeds…hum…?
The Bug (sorta) created the Falcon which evolved the whole muscle car era (thru the ‘stang)
AND
the Bronco (C my pic) is just a 4 WD model which evolved the whole SUV era (we’re sorta there still).
The British bikes competed to produce Vincent etc & led to the Japanese evolving a whole industry (also Indian v Harley).
What is happening now? Globalization…however nothing is evolving.

Whew! what a read. I always liked the 1960 to 1963 Falcons; the ’64 reskinning lost the pleasant looks of the car. Two of the cars I would love to have are an early 1960’s Falcon 4 door wagon or a mid 60’s VW Squareback (I owned three).
As to the stretching and squeezing, carstylecritic.com has a great article on the GM B bodies of the early 1950s: http://carstylecritic.blogspot.it/2017/11/richard-howard-stouts-fascinating.html

The percentage of the global population that has ridden in or owned this platform must be amazing in relative terms. My parents brought me home as a newborn in a first gen North American Falcon, my driver’s ed car was a Maverick and my wife drove a North American Granada in college.

There were countless other rides in this platform as well.

The ’64 Falcon Sprint is probably peak “Falcon Platform” for me. A friend had one while in my college years and for me it was discovering a cool car I’d never heard of. The shadow of the Mustang had obscured the Sprint for a long time.

Wow, what an article – missed it first time around. I have extensive experience with two of the Falcon derivatives: a 1969 Fairlane 500 wagon that was owned by my parents and a 1965 Mustang 6/3-speed convertible that I owned from 1974 to 1978.

The “wide platform” didn’t use them, there was a more reinforcement on the fender mounting rails, which likely had the same effect in stabilizing the shock towers. The Granada didn’t use the diagonal braces either

I suspect we’re talking about the same thing, but it was also used on the 66+ Falcon/Fairlane if it is. It’s not a plainly visible and removable brace like the diagonal ones, but rather an upper reinforcement along the sides, tying the tops of the shock towers to the bulkhead. It makes sense calling it a catwalk brace in that position, I just never knew Ford had a specific term for it.

The earlier cars without the catwalk brace had virtually nothing structural tied between the bulkhead and the tops of the spring towers. All the marginal reenforcement for them consisted of the bolted on fenders and the thin steel of the aprons, which is why they used the diagonal brace in those models.

roger628

Posted March 25, 2018 at 12:39 AM

Ford also had a one-piece version called the “Export Brace”, so called because it was fitted to export versions. It is/was a common upgrade.

Thank you! I was hoping I wasn’t imagining it. I had a ’70 Torino Brougham (my first decent car), and I was under the hood plenty of times. (No, it wasn’t unreliable; there was still so much in those days I could do myself, unlike today’s cars.)

Family members kept both an early 80s Mustang, and an early 90s Shadow, on the road a very long time. And I was impressed at the new parts availability, and affordability for both. Never any problem finding parts for either. One advantage to buyers of long lived platforms.

So Ford learned how easily a basic platform can be stretched and modified to meet differing handling, styling and performance goals. Then they developed the Fox and Panther platforms and did the same thing all over again!

Not sure if this was mentioned, but the earlier 6-cyl Mustangs ( maybe up to ‘66) had a 4-bolt lug pattern, while the 8-cyl had a larger 5-bolt, presumably to handle the extra weight. I recall this because a guy I knew in high school made the supreme mistake of dropping a 302 into a 1965 6-cyl car, and had to upgrade the suspension, front and rear, a huge amount of work (and cost).
Would have been better off selling the car and buying a original factory V-8.